On the Olympics.

Scherr stabilizes USOC

September 22, 2004|By Philip Hersh.

For 18 months, Jim Scherr has been doing three jobs at the U.S. Olympic Committee--acting chief executive officer, chief of sports performance and custodian.

Scherr's quiet efficiency has cleaned up the malodorous muck left by the influence-peddling mess that led to the 2003 resignations of the USOC's top volunteer official, President Marty Mankamyer, and top salaried official, CEO Lloyd Ward.

Scherr, paid only to be sports performance boss and given no promises his CEO role would become permanent, more importantly has kept the USOC running smoothly through the six congressional investigations and major restructuring provoked by the leadership scandal.

His performance means the USOC's new board of directors can avoid wasting time and money on a CEO search that will not turn up anyone better suited for the job than Scherr.

"I feel strongly Jim should get the job permanently," said Bob Contiguglia, president of the U.S. Soccer Federation. "He has established a great level of trust and professionalism since taking over. In Athens he served the athletes well during unsettled times."

Those athletes led both the gold and overall medal counts at the 2004 Athens Olympics, the first on Scherr's watch. They also earned respect for their conduct on and off the field. And he takes a no-excuses stand on doping as the USOC finally got serious about the problem.

"Jim stepped into a very difficult situation and has handled it well," said Anita DeFrantz, a member of both the USOC board and the International Olympic Committee. "His professionalism has enabled the staff to concentrate on the USOC's most important goal: serving the athletes."

Scherr is a 1988 Olympian in wrestling who spent 10 years as head of USA Wrestling before joining the USOC in 2000. During his USA Wrestling tenure, the federation erased a deficit and trailed only Russia in Olympic medals won.

One objection to making Scherr the CEO has been his low profile outside USOC headquarters in Colorado Springs. Some believed the USOC needed another alleged heavy-hitter to increase the organization's visibility.

The selection of Peter Ueberroth as USOC chairman--an unpaid, volunteer position--gives the body the big name it needs to gain entry to corporate board-rooms and politicians' offices.

Anyone who thinks the USOC still should have a CEO with more apparent clout must have forgotten the results of a selection process that favored such credentials. The last three USOC bosses--corporate bigwigs Norm Blake and Ward and former NCAA boss Dick Schultz--were unmitigated and expensive disasters.

All three drained USOC resources with sweetheart contracts for themselves and the friends they hired. All three made about $500,000 a year in salary alone.

According to its tax return, two of the five highest-paid USOC employees in 2003 were Ward hires--marketing director Toby Wong ($275,588) and chief operating officer Fred Wohlschlaeger ($255,210). Both resigned under pressure in early 2003.

Scherr's salary for 2003 did not make the top five, which ended at $229,527. This year, he is earning slightly more--$250,000, with no incentives or bonuses.

Yet he was the one CEO, acting or not, who insisted on paying for his own meals in the Olympic training center cafeteria. He is the one who understands how the USOC works, in both its unwieldy previous structure and its presumably more efficient form after the reorganization. It shouldn't take $500,000 a year and a lot of perks to keep Scherr, who has an MBA from Northwestern. A South Dakota native, he is comfortable living in out-of-the way Colorado Springs.

That doesn't mean Scherr is the best choice because he comes cheaper. (He should become at least the highest-paid employee, at about $300,000 a year, if given the CEO's job). Scherr deserves the job for many reasons, including having earned the trust of a staff whose morale was thought to have bottomed out under Schultz but became progressively lower in the next four years under Blake and Ward.

Scherr imposed an austerity program to deal with a potential $12 million deficit inherited from Ward, cutting the full-time staff by nearly 20 percent and concentrating efforts on the USOC's redefined mission of helping Olympic and Paralympic athletes win medals.

"He is working well, and I have been impressed," said IOC member Richard Pound, chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

IOC insiders say President Jacques Rogge also is impressed with the job Scherr has done in bringing calm and stability to the world's most important national Olympic committee.

Stability and the USOC were a conflict in terms until Scherr helped end the nonsense.